Lion's Heat (3 page)

He followed. He couldn't help himself. The damned file cabinet was taller than she was.

He reached it before she did, pulled the top drawer free, then plucked the file out of her fingers and inserted it in its proper place.

He was more than aware of the look of narrow-eyed suspicion she shot him as he pushed the drawer closed before following her back to her desk.

"Cancel the appointment with Racert," he demanded as she retook her seat.

There was an edge of suspicion in her gaze as she looked up at him.

"Stop hovering over me." Ice dripped from her voice, as though his presence did nothing to affect her.

He may have believed it if the child, a perfect barometer for the mother's feelings, didn't choose that moment to let out a silent whimper of distress. Her mother was clearly upset, off balance, perhaps even frightened. Because whatever emotion her mother was feeling, so then was the child feeling.

Jonas backed up with three deliberate steps, waiting tensely for the child to regain the calm he wanted the mother to feel.

It happened slowly. One step at a time. Rachel turned back to the computer and that impossible itinerary she was working on.

"Racert is double-crossing us," he finally told her, careful to keep his voice quiet. "He's after information."

"Which you give so rarely and with such perfect manners," she mocked him.

He grunted at the comment. He would tell her anything she wanted to know; she only had to ask. Racert, however, was another thing entirely.

"Cancel the meeting," he ordered her again.

"No." There was pure stubborn refusal in her voice.

His lips thinned.

"Fine, I'll leave the office." He stalked back to the doorway.

"Go ahead." He heard the shrug in her voice. "I'll handle the meeting myself. I believe the meeting involves the latest projected budget, which you haven't yet turned in. I'm certain I can handle that."

Jonas assured himself he wasn't paling at the very thought of Miss-Financial-Tight-Ass creating his budget.

A growl slipped free before he could hold it back.

Rachel's brow arched as disdain filled her expression. But from the child, he felt something far different, something he was certain he should at least protest.

Amusement. The baby was amused, which meant her mother was much more amused.

"Are you laughing at me?" He paced back to her desk, flattened his hands on the dark wood and leaned forward. Close enough that he could smell her unique scent. Close enough that the hunger ripping through his guts sharpened to a dagger's stroke. "Be careful, little girl," he warned her softly, holding her gaze, watching the wild green become darker, wilder. "Or you may well get far more than you're bargaining for."

The amusement drifted away and something far darker took its place.

Jonas eased back. He forced himself from the suddenly reckless anticipation that poured from the woman, despite the composed features, the iron will and stubborn determination. Slowly, he straightened, turned and forced himself back to his own office.

There was desire there, in the sweet scent of her, in the tension that tightened between them each time he went near her. There was hunger. The scent of it was like a soft summer rainfall. It was fresh, tinged with the scent of the earth itself, and a sweet moisture that he knew could become addictive as hell.

The woman was everything he could have wanted in a mate. She was the dream he'd never allowed himself to wish for. Because it was the greatest danger he could bring to his life, and the future of the Breeds.

This was a temptation he knew he could never allow himself to weaken to. It was a promise he had made to himself. It was a vow. And this small woman was shredding his determination one look, one word, one breath at a time.

His mate would never know mating heat.

CHAPTER 1

FOUR MONTHS LATER

For the first time in her life, Rachel Broen was terrified. It wasn't fear. It was soul-destroying, mind-numbing, silently screaming terror.

She couldn't scream aloud, it would draw notice. Notice that her tears and ragged sobs wouldn't draw, weren't drawing as she slid her unassuming little Civic into the deserted parking lot of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

The night guard on duty at the gate had taken her pass without much notice. He knew her car, had seen enough of her to know who she was. It wasn't unusual for her to leave late, or to arrive early if she was commanded to do so by the autocratic Bureau director, Jonas Wyatt.

The guard had easily accepted her hasty excuse that she'd forgotten to update his memos and his morning schedule, and that it had to be done tonight.

He hadn't noticed her torn blouse or the jacket she wore that covered it. He hadn't seen the bruise she could feel spreading across the right side of her face, or the swollen condition of her right eye.

The blow had been carefully delivered.

Jumping from the car, she felt the rough asphalt bite into her bare feet as she stumbled before racing to the door. It took two attempts to get her electronic card pass to activate the doors and release the locks.

A thin sob tore from her chest as she nearly fell through the door and ran for the stairs that led to the third floor and the private offices of the director, Jonas Wyatt.

Jonas. The manipulating, calculating bastard. This was his fault. He'd played too many games. He'd pushed the wrong people and had so erroneously believed they would come after him.

She tripped, her knee slamming into a step, the skin breaking as a ragged scream of rage and pain tore from her lips.

She was paying for it.

Oh God. She was paying for it. She was paying for her stubbornness, her determination . . . No, she wasn't paying for it. The bruises, the agony tearing through her leg, the ragged pain in her side from the fist she had taken earlier, the bruises on her face, they were nothing. She would suffer that pain a thousand times over. She would suffer the fires of hell if only her child was safe.

Jonas. He was here.

A strangled scream tore from her lips as she fought to breathe, to race up the second flight of stairs. One more flight. Dear God, she was almost there.

Jonas was here. She knew he was. He had warned her that evening not to come to work tomorrow. He had known his enemies were tracking him. He'd known, the son of a bitch, he'd known and just as she'd warned him months ago, when they struck, it wouldn't be him they went after.

She had never believed they would come after her child.

"Jonas!" She tried to scream out his name as she fumbled with the electronic key at the door to the main offices.

Sliding it again, again, and still it wouldn't work.

"Jonas, please . . ." she screamed out again, terrified he would ignore her, knowing he had to hear her.

He was a Breed.

The lock released, the heavy steel door flew open, nearly pitching her to the floor as the door to Jonas's office jerked open across the room.

He was there, and he wasn't alone. She barely saw the others though. She saw his face, hated and yet adored. His eyes, alive in his bronzed face, swirls of silver mercury as he jumped to her, barely catching her before she fell to the floor.

"You bastard!" An openhanded slap to his shocked face as sobs tore from her, tears making her vision cloudy as terror choked her, ripping the breath from her body. "I warned you! I warned you they wouldn't strike you!"

"Rachel!" A horrible rumble of sound in fury, a muted roar left his lips as he gripped her arms, his fingers tight around her flesh as he gave her a firm shake.

"They have Amber!"

The strength left her legs, her body. Collapsing against his chest, she clawed at his arms, desperate for the strength she knew he possessed, fighting for sanity in a world that had suddenly exploded around her.

"They want those files. They'll kill her." Wild, terrified, she knew he would never do it. She knew he would never save her baby. "Please, Jonas. Give me the files. Save my baby. Oh God, save my baby."

Jonas felt the life leave his body. For the first time in his life, Jonas Wyatt felt pure, unadulterated terror washing through him.

His unflappable, cool paragon of a secretary, the mate he refused to claim, stared up at him with tear-drenched dark green eyes, her pale face so horribly bruised.

The scent of her terror and her injuries were an affront to his senses, the knowledge that the child he had claimed as his own so many months ago was in the line of fire, had the animal inside him screaming in rage.

"Chimera." His head jerked to the side as the Jaguar female stepped from her position in the office behind him, moving past the three men that were quickly pulling weapons from a once-hidden vault and strapping them on. "Take her."

He pushed Rachel to the female Enforcer, seeing in the other woman's clear, predatory gaze the need to fight rather than stand back.

"No! Jonas, no!" Rachel clutched at him, ripping his heart from his chest as the agonizing fury in her voice tore through his mind.

A scream of rage tore through his head, only years of patience, of strength, years of conditioning held back the instinctive response as his mate fought to be strong, fought to hold on to her sanity in the face of the danger her child now faced.

"Rachel, listen to me." He shook her again, gently, staring into her beautiful dark green, velvet eyes. "I'll get Amber. I swear to you."

Panic filled her eyes. He hadn't believed her face could become whiter, but it did. The scent of her terror tore through him like a ragged blade as her sobs ripped through his soul.

"They'll kill her," she tried to scream, but the hoarse desperation in her voice came out as a ragged plea. "I don't have time." She jerked at the hold he had on her. "Give me the files. Please. Oh God, please Jonas."

"Jonas, we have to move." Dane Vanderale, the son and heir of the Leo, the strongest Lion Breed ever created, moved to his side. "We have a location. Brandenmore's limo is parked at her house. I have a unit heading there now."

"Back off." Jonas jerked around, snarling at the man whom genetics tied him to as a brother, as the other man made plans--not to save Amber, but to take the enemy instead. "Call your team back. Too many will be dangerous." He turned to the men he knew he could trust. "Rule, have the Blazer brought around." The specially modified city SUV would hold the team, as well as weapons. "Lawe, Mordecai, go ahead, recon only."

The men moved out as Dane cursed behind him.

Jonas held Rachel as she pleaded. Her rejection of a team moving out was a ragged litany of desperation as she begged him to just give her the files.

"Chimera, the files are on my desk."

He'd been waiting for Brandenmore's men. The files had been in place, the information the bastard wanted lying in clear view as they'd laid the trap for him. A trap Brandenmore thought he could use a child to escape.

"Rachel, enough." Her sobs were destroying him as she tried to pull away, to gain the files and escape with them, even though she knew he would never allow it.

"No, Jonas." Her tear-drenched, bruised face destroyed him as her gentle voice, so often cool and yet tinged with amusement was now filled with rage. "You won't play games with my child's life."

So many months she had worked for him, with him. Still, she hadn't seen beyond what others called the games.

Releasing one of her arms, he let his fingers trail down her unbruised cheek. His throat was tight with the agony that this one person, whom he had been slowly allowing into that inner core of himself, still saw only his outer surface.

"Give me the files," she begged, though he saw the fury in her eyes, the knowledge that he could never do that.

"Jonas, the files." Chimera stopped at his side as Dane, Rule and Mordecai moved into place at the door, fully prepared, weapons stowed carefully under jackets and in the duffel bags they carried.

"Come on." He made the decision quickly, his hard gaze connecting with Chimera's in a silent order that he knew the other woman would understand.

She had sole responsibility for Rachel's life once they arrived at the small home where the baby was being held. Jonas would move in with Dane and the others to secure the baby, to ensure that those who threatened her never threatened another living soul.

"Jonas?" Rachel stumbled again, only to find herself lifted into his arms, his broad, muscled chest beneath her, his hard, savagely hewn expression more animal than man at the moment.

There was rage swirling in the living depths of those quicksilver eyes. Like a beast, separate from the man, raged inside him now.

"The files won't save the child." His voice was a hard, rasping growl. "You know it as well as I, Rachel. They'll kill her, and they'll kill you. I won't allow it."

She knew it. In her mother's heart, she had seen it in Phillip Brandenmore's eyes each time he struck her, his fist brutal, his gaze reflecting pleasure--and anticipation.

"He doesn't know you were waiting on him." She forced the words past her lips. "I didn't tell him, Jonas."

But she had known. Jonas hadn't told her either, but she had gotten to know the man she worked for over the months. She'd learned to anticipate not just his needs, but also his actions, and to prepare accordingly.

"I know you didn't tell him, Rachel." They moved along the hall to a side door, inaccessible except for the highest level of security.

"We need to know what we're driving into." Dane Vanderale's normally mocking, amused voice was now steel hard, icy with death. Rachel could almost believe he was a Breed as well, as those eerie emerald eyes of his narrowed on her. "What happened?"

The nightmare of the night thickened her voice as she told him.

She had gone home. Her babysitter wasn't there. Amber had been crying. She was only three months old. She was hungry, she was wet and she was frightened. Rachel had heard the baby's screams the second her feet hit the small back porch.

She hadn't thought; she had reacted. She had rushed to get to her baby, and she had met the merciless eyes of the men who had been awaiting her instead.